


Dream-Land

by azhdarchidaen



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Dimensional Weirdness, Gen, No one really likes the laws of physics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 18:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5174270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azhdarchidaen/pseuds/azhdarchidaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"By each spot the most unholy—<br/>In each nook most melancholy,—<br/>There the traveller meets, aghast,<br/>Sheeted Memories of the Past"</p><p>A collection of unfamiliar places that Stanford Pines has found himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream-Land

 

_By a route obscure and lonely,_

_Haunted by ill angels only,_

_Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,_

_On a black throne reigns upright,_

_I have reached these lands but newly_

_From an ultimate dim Thule—_

_From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,_

_Out of SPACE—Out of TIME._

 

* * *

 

 **`Dimension: ` ** **`3` **

 

He’s new to this whole interdimensional experience, but Ford still feels like something is off about this place. Not that the sun seeming too bright, like it does here, or the noises everywhere being uncomfortable are new experiences for him. But something about the sudden chill in the air (although he’s been shivering, burying numb fingers in threadbare coat pockets, for some time now) that he could swear is intensifying is giving him run-while-you-still-can vibes more strongly than usual.

It’s when the ground starts shaking that he decides they’re not just vibes.

He freezes in his tracks, trying to keep a steady head. _Figure out what’s going on, figure out what’s happening, don’t panic just think and figure. That’s what you’re supposed to be good at._

There’s a rush of cold wind, and he pulls his coat tightly around him in response as he struggles to keep his footing on the shifting ground. But as it tilts a good 45 degrees it becomes impossible, and he starts to slide downwards. It’s as he’s scrabbling for a handhold that he realizes the terrain here could offer some explanation,

It’s when he looks upwards that he realizes the hypothesis was correct.

He’s clinging to a scale, and looming above him is an eye of a staggering magnitude. He’s been stumbling his way in the cold across this giant creature the entire time.

 _Reptilian,_ the part of his brain that likes to rationalize in terrifying scenarios offers as he’s swung by the creature’s motion. _Or at the very least exothermic -- the cold has kept it sluggish and dormant, the thing is the size of a small mountain, of course it would have a conservative metabolism…._

Except it doesn’t explain why the creature’s decided to become active now. But perhaps it’s irrelevant, because as abruptly as the motion began, it ceases. Maybe the thing’s just a restless sleeper -- Ford could sympathize. Does its species have dreams? He knows as well as anyone that a vivid nightmare can interrupt even the heaviest of sleeps.

Of course, if the thought is an attempt to give the thing sympathy, he’s going to need a lot more proof. Its little shift of position whilst napping has left him hanging at what is now about a 90-degree angle, by frozen fingers. And it’s a long way down. Here's to hoping he can make the climb.

 

**`Dimension: 76` **

Ford grits his teeth, ducking into another alleyway, just to ensure one last time he’s lost his pursuers. He needs to find a place to clear his head, although his head is pretty damn clear of thoughts other than “ _Holy hell that hurts,”_ and maybe, the curious to the morbid end part of his brain sneaking in a _“What power source do those energy weapons even utilize? The sheer capacity….”_ edgewise. Because whatever it is, it’s making his legs feel like jelly -- and he got struck on the  _shoulder_.

Carefully, he lifts his hand from the wound to try to take stock of the pain, only to wince slightly when he realizes he can actually see it -- the burned bit of his shoulder, that is -- through the charred remains of the cloak that had been draped over the area. And this one was only _starting_ to get tattered.

He's struck by a wave of dizziness, adrenaline rush dying on him and pain taking over, and he drops to the ground, deciding then and there that this grubby backstreet is the farthest secluded space he can make it to. It’s probably not even worth heading back to the spaceport boardinghouse now -- he’d only left a small bag of things there, none of them pressingly important to retrieve. Not if it risks running into the thugs that he only just narrowly escaped.

 _“Just get this delivery to the Ad’drizzi’ market,”_ the jumpy apothecary he’d offered to take an odd job for had said. _“Whatever happens, make the delivery, and if you do you’ll get your payment.”_

Well, failed step one. Which meant that on top of needing to treat his shoulder, his empty pockets are not about to be filled, and he has no idea where his next meal is coming from. That whole “if” really should have struck him as more suspicious.

Maybe he should just start taking his offers from the criminals, that inevitably use him as punching bags as they make off with his best shot at getting paid, instead.

He sighs, slumping further down against the wall behind him in defeat. Even he can pick out the three or so things wrong with that idea as soon as he has it. Most of them involving the phrase “punching bag” -- he doesn’t see himself having any more success with the lawless than the lawful. Not on this planet. And at least failing at delivering a package of medications to the market leaves his conscience clear.

…. relatively speaking. He hopes no one needs those things too urgently. They’re not about to be well-stocked at the market now, and he supposed that could now be _arguably_ credited as his fault.

Speaking of medications, he’d give anything for some painkillers right now.

The damage to his shoulder looks, even to his only vaguely-medically trained eye, like something he needs to address pretty immediately. The primary question being “how?” but he’s sure he’ll figure out something. He always does. Usually it’s not pretty, but he’s given up on pretty. He always preferred wearing heavy, concealing clothing anyway -- it’s not like anyone’s going to see the mess left behind.

Or like there’s anyone who’d be concerned about him, were they to catch a glance of his growing collection of scarring, left.

He grits his teeth once more as he rips a piece from the bottom of his cloak and wraps it around the wound tightly. Time to keep moving.

 

**`Dimension: 124` **

 

Places that refuse to obey at least one of the laws of the universe he’d learned to accept as a constant in his scientific career aren’t _always_ the worst, but Ford does think he ranks this one among them.

“When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second one exerts a force _equal in magnitude and opposite in direction_ on the first!” he shouts at the boulders in front of him as he rams his shoulder into the nearest one. It’s an attempt to dislodge it and continue forging a path through this underground quarry.

...And a futile one to make them listen. He swears the rock edges slightly _towards_ him before the action flings him a solid twenty feet backwards. The impact his body makes with the cave floor absolutely counts as an exertion of force, as attested to by a concerning cracking noise and a pain he can’t quite register, but nothing else about the interaction makes sense. And while three tries at this might now have made the failure statistically significant, his aching ribs are screaming at him for continuing the experiment.

He supposes he can now add “Isaac Newton” to the list of people who have lied to him.

Perhaps it would be cathartic to burn a copy of _Principia Mathematica_ like an archetypal lover scorned, but he doesn’t exactly have a one with him. For not the first time, Ford finds himself mourning his library at home. It was never the most expansive, mostly filled with shabby thrift-shop copies of assorted reference and research materials (ones he wouldn’t feel guilty dog-earing, and inevitably getting carried away adding notes to in the margins) shelved haphazardly next to science fiction anthologies picked up on the same bargain excursions. But mint-condition or no, he’d harbored a certain affection for the books. It hurts a little to realize that there’s probably no one taking care of them now.

There’s no one to take care of _him_ either, he reminds himself, snapping out of his nostalgia. If he doesn’t figure out some way to escape this cave and sort out... certain complications (like some kind of food, and proper water…) there won’t exactly be anyone left to mourn them.

The thought he pushes aside -- for practical ones instead, about how to try to make this dimension’s bizarre physics work to his advantage somehow, and that he should probably see to possible injuries before he moves onward -- is that someday, inevitably, that will be true.

 _And then_ , he thinks, before burying it entirely,  _what are the chances are the books won’t be the only things whose loss goes unlamented?_

 

**`Dimension: 49` **

 

There’s a child staring at him in the marketplace. Ford is here to get supplies, hood pulled around his face and trying to lose himself in the hustle and bustle of the shopping crowds, but there’s still a child staring at him. They’re holding their parent’s hand, looking at him with wide and curious eyes -- all three of them, unblinking and vibrant green.

He’s gotten used to organic beings of all shapes and sizes, with varying numbers of eyes and limbs and sometimes -- to his own particular vigilance -- digits, across an impossibly diverse spectrum in his travels. A part of him now wonders if his own childhood would have been any different (better?) in a dimension where Earth wasn’t so marked by what he now realizes is distinctive homogeneity -- oxymoronic as the idea may be.

But the child is still staring at him.

He tilts his hood slightly from his face to give them an anxious smile, wondering what he’s done to garner their attention and how he can make it stop. It could be any number of things -- there’s every chance they’ve never seen a human being before, that even in a dimension where intelligent species intermingle he’s still an anomaly because his own isn’t present. It could be the makeshift bandage wrapped around his upper right arm (he probably needs to fashion a new one sometime soon, he thinks it’s bleeding through) from his unintended scuffle with the spaceport authorities the other day. It could be the look on his face, because he knows he looks tired (he  _is_  tired).

It could be any assortment of things combined to make him a curiosity.

There is no smile in return.

And now the merchant for the line he’s standing in has served the others who were waiting, and is asking for his payment. Thoughts are buried for a shuffling of coins and he’s handed a parcel of the seeds that are the closest thing he’s found to a consistent source of nutrition for him in this dimension -- with a fairly simple taste and texture most would probably describe as “unremarkable” if asked.

But what Ford knows  _isn’t_  unremarkable, as he slips away into the crowd as quietly possible, is himself. And for the same reason he’s put off by anything much more flavorful than his seed packet, that unnerves him. Things more distinctive stand out.

The child is still watching as he leaves, and he’s reminded that there’s a certain kind of attention, paradoxically, that for his whole life has only ever made him feel lonelier.

**`Dimension: Home [?]` **

It’s late, late enough that sleep should be his primary concern, but the only thing Ford has on his mind is dismantling the portal. He’s been at it non-stop, but only partially because of his fears, his guilt, and the rift.

He’s also been at it because it’s grounding.

Having something to do, something to throw himself into,  _distraction --_  it's been his method of dealing with the world for so long that he doesn’t know what he’d do without it. The last 30 years have been a blur of distractions of survival, the 10 before them distractions of studies. Before those even, he supposes, they were the distractions of childhood.

Has he ever _not_ lived this way?

For the time being, he has this: the distraction of fixing things. But for things to need fixing, they must first have been broken. And when he runs out of distractions, the broken things are all that will be left.

 _“The past is a foreign country”_ it’s said in the literary. Or in his more preferred domain of the scientific, that _“measurements of space and time are relative to the velocities of the observers.”_

It hurts to agree

Any dreams he ever had of coming home were not, he's realized, to this one. There are people here he’s never met, but should have. His home, suddenly, is a place he’s never been before.

While traveling, his own speed seemed a constant, a slow progression through obstacles. A steady one, if difficult. But he hasn't observed that progression here. He never watched the town of Gravity Falls change, never saw his _family_ change -- _expand_ \-- while he was gone.

He left this place at a constant speed, only to return to it and find a different one in its place -- one where time has moved so quickly, he can hardly wrap his mind around it. 30 years not watched happen go by so much faster than 30 years lived.

Relativity indeed.

Dismantling the portal is good. It’s going to keep everyone safe (he _prays_ it’s going to keep them safe), and it’s going to keep him from dwelling on the fact that even home now isn’t home. But he knows it will only take up so much time. And once he’s done, there are going to be more broken things left than his old experiment.

Those ones, he doesn’t know how to start fixing.

* * *

 

 

_By a route obscure and lonely,_

_Haunted by ill angels only,_

_Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,_

_On a black throne reigns upright,_

_I have wandered home but newly_

_From this ultimate dim Thule._

**Author's Note:**

> fic title, summary excerpt, and other stanzas featured are all taken from edgar allan poe's "dream-land" -- a poem which i think is very fitting for the subject material in its entirety, even if only certain bits were featured here


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